MONDAY: Some Things Are Hard to Talk About

SOMEONE POUNDED Josh’s head against the wall. He yelled for the person to stop, wondered why he hadn’t passed out. Finally, the knocking on the door woke him.

“Just a sec,” he yelled. Alexa lay next to him in the bed.

“Huh?” she said, a naked breast exposed.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you. There’s someone at the door.”

“What time is it?”

“7:42. Way too early to get up on a Saturday morning, especially after the night we had.” He kissed her on the shoulder, pulled up the sheet, and tucked her in.

He put on a pair of sweatpants, grabbed a robe, and padded to the front door.

“Mom? What are you doing here this early?”

“It’s not early,” she said storming through the door. “Your father and I get up every morning at 5:30.” She strode to the kitchen and grabbed a K-cup. “I tried to talk your father into getting one of these fancy coffee thingies, even bought him one for Christmas. He took it back. Said it was a waste of money. Heaven forbid we waste money.” She looked to the ceiling and crossed herself. “Certainly not like that table saw he bought after he retired that’s gathering dust in the garage.” She grabbed a mug and filled it.

Josh rolled his eyes. Before he could speak, Alexa came out of the bedroom wearing a sundress, her hair combed, her perfect white teeth on display.

“Oh,” his mom said, in a gentler voice than Josh remembered. “Who’s this?”

“Mom,” Josh said, taking Alexa’s hand in his. “This is Alexa.”

“Nice to meet you, Alexa,” his mother said, taking a sip of coffee. “She’s cute, Josh. How come I haven’t met her before?”

Josh blushed.

“We’ve only been dating for a few months,” he said.

When Josh looked away, his mother gave Alexa an exaggerated wink. Alexa returned a thumbs up, as if some secret communication had taken place.

“A few months?” his mother said. “And I haven’t heard anything about her? Is she any good in bed?”

Alexa blushed and put a hand over her mouth to hold in the laugh attempting to escape.

“Mom!” Josh said. His mother retained her straightforward Brooklyn attitude, even though the family had moved to Miami 20 years ago after Josh’s dad said he was sick of snow.

“Well, it’s been a few months. Certainly you’ve —

“M-o-o-m!” Josh plopped into a kitchen chair with a moan.

“Oh all right.” She winked Alexa’s way again. Alexa winked back. “You know your father and I did it like bunnies before he finally proposed. I guess he wanted to make sure I wasn’t so oversexed I would kill him.”

“Well, I haven’t killed him yet,” Alexa said with a laugh, “but I’ve tried.”

“Alexa!” Josh yelled.

“I like her, Joshie. She sounds like a keeper.”

“Joshie?” Alexa sat on his lap. “You didn’t tell me your mom had a pet name for you.”

Josh didn’t know how his face could get any warmer, but it did.

“Do you have a pet name for him, Alexa?”

“No, but I’ll have to give it some thought.”

“Yeah, maybe something like Thumper, or Humper,” Mom said.

“Oh, God.” Josh put an elbow on the table and rested his forehead in the palm. He knew better than to respond further.

“I’m not sure I have enough data to know if either of those names works,” Alexa said.

“So, Mom,” Josh said changing the subject. “Why are you here?”

“For some good coffee,” she said, raising her cup.

“Come on, Mom. I know you better than that. You wouldn’t show up this early on a Saturday unless something was wrong.”

“Oh crap,” his mother said, looking at her watch. “I’m going to be late meeting Margie at the mall.” She put her mug on the kitchen counter and hurried to the front door. “Damn it. Margie will be grumpy all morning.”

She opened the door, paused, stared up, as if waiting for a traffic light to change, said, “I’m divorcing your father.” She turned her back to them. “And I don’t want to talk about it.”

Nancy’s Notes to Contributors

Attention CommuterLit Contributors

It's time to clean up the files on the site. To make way for further postings, our first two years of posts (2010-2011) have been deleted. That means some of the links on contributor pages are defunct. Please be patient as we delete those links over the next few weeks.

Recent posts

Latest Book Review Podcast: “Circe” by Madeline Miller

CommuterLit editor and publisher Nancy Kay Clark (left) has launched a book review podcast with her young adult son Nathan Bennet (right), called with radical clarity, Mom and Son Book Reviews. As they are both great fans of sci fi and speculative fiction, they concentrate on reviewing novels, short-story collections and graphic novels, both new and not-so-new, in those genres.